Advertising

'Virtual Skipper 3' - Update Patch Available NOW

New features include improved ISAF rules, team racing as well as many other features.

Virtual Skipper 3 v1.1 Patch

Main corrections:

- It is now possible to create new profiles.
- Correction of some ISAF rules.

Main new features:

- when selecting a challenge, a dialog box allows you to change its parameters, or to randomize them.
- The trim bar is now bigger to allow a more precise sail setting.
- A map view allows to previsualize the course (button on the bottom left of the radar)
- The tropical map have now a size of 100x100 blocs, increasing the building area from 2.2 km² to 25km²
- A "wait mode" for online games allows to organize races more efficiently
- The players have now access to more information about the current online games without having to join them (length and progression of the regatta, kind of boat, race or wait mode...)
- Added forty new customisable solo challenges (Number of AIs can be set too)

- Menus slightly redesigned (background and text color)
- New organisation of the main menu ("challenge mode" becomes "play solo", "solo mode" becomes "custom race" and the credits moved to the option menu)

Race :

- The new custom challenges provided by Nadeo have a customizable number of AIs
- The gun shots are corrected (1mn from start, start, arrival of the first boat)
- The game is now paused in solo mode when displaying game menus.
- The sails have now a target setting and a current setting, same as the rudder
- The speed for sheeting and easing sails is now different (easing is slower).
- The moving speed of the rudder and trim cursor with the keyboard is now equal to the fastest setting speed (equivalent to the speed you can reach with the mouse).
- The "Full Sheet" button can now be used in manual or automatic mode.
- The first buoy of the regatta is now displayed at the beginning of the race
- A new button allows to switch between manual and automatic mode (can only be used when the commands level of your profile is set to "normal")
- The current sail button remains pressed down if you click it again
- Added a countdown in fleet mode displaying the remaining time to solve a penalty
- The local player name is not displayed anymore
- The size of the chronometer on the toolbar has been increased
- Softening of the shadow wind and mirror wind
- Increase of the IACC's maximum heel.
- The boat's heel when the sail is in the axis of the wind is more realistic.
- The internal camera positions take into the boat's heel and pitch.

Editor :

- The tropical map have now a size of 100x100 blocs, increasing the building area from 2.2 km² to 25km². The old 30x30 maps are still usable and editable, but can not be converted.
- It si now possible to select the traffic paths in the traffic editor by clicking on them.
- The recorded trajectories do not stop before the finish line anymore
- The race parameters dialog box has not a forced focus on the limited time anymore.
- Is is not possible to create traffic paths of one point only by clicking many times on the same point.
- You can now protect a challenge from editing with a password
- A new parameter allows to lock/unlock the settings of a challenge outside the editor.

Replays :

- Improvement of the replay interface (current replay time, button to switch boats...).
- Cameras can now be controlled in replay mode (same commands as Ingame)
- A replay autosave feature for multiplayer games generates MultiPlayerAutoSaveXX.Replay.Gbx files in the replay directory, with XX cycling from 00 to 50, and reset every time the game is launched.

- the sound does not bug anymore during the loading of a level on some sound cards.
- automatic limitation of the number of sounds played on sound cards without hardware acceleration

Controls:

- no more direction bugs when multiple joysticks are plugged
- the wheel is now taken into account at the very beginning of the race
- Correction of other keyboard/joysitck input problems (loss of inputs, parasites...)
- The joystick's return to center position is more accurate
- It is now possible to sail/use the interface while the chat is active

Network :

- The multiplayer game has now a "wait mode" and a "race mode". In the "wait mode", all the players are ghosts and the game is considered to be in a "waiting for players" state. If the server goes in race mode, the regatta starts with all the current players. The server can return to "wait mode" whenever he wants.

- Reorganisation and new informations about the current online games:
-> total number of players, servers and online friends on the upper right corner of the screen
-> the servers tree view can now be flattened for a quicker browsing
-> players can be listed with their nickname, or their nickname and their login.
-> For every server, you can see whether it is in "wait mode" or "race mode", a percentage of completion of the current regatta, the kind of boat used, the wind strength and the current and max number of players.
-> at the bottom of the list you can see the name of the focused server, race, environment, author of the map and length of the race.

- During a race, is the player selected random parameters for the current challenge, restarting the race will keep the same parameters while going to the next challenge will set new random parameters.
- The selection of challenges in an online game now respects the click order instead of the alphabetical order.
- the in-game dialog box does not block the network game anymore
- The network code has been improved (better synchronisation, less connection losses)
- Corrected a bug which allowed more than 2 players to play a regatta with Match Race rules.
- The server does not get blocked between 2 challenges anymore ("election bug")
- Players do not overlap each other at the beginning of the race anymore.
- Traffic boats do not have the name "opponent" displayed anymore in multiplayer challenges.
- les list of multiplayer challenges is now alphabetically ordered.
- The waiting time when a new player joins a race has been reduced.
- The chat displays automatic messages when a player joins/leaves the game or when he receive a penalty.
- The message when a player is kicked is more explicit.

Datas:

- Corrected the problem with landscapes being non collidable
- Added forty new customisable solo challenges (Number of AIs can be set too)

ISAF Rules:

- Corrected the attribution of penalties in online games.
- Corrected attribution and cancellation of penalties in online match races.
- When two boats have a false start penalty, the rule 20 is correctly applied.
- The rule 15 is correctly applied at the exit of a buoy.
- When a boat gets the priority after another boat tacks, the rule 15 is not applied anymore.
- A boat is not protected against penalties during 15seconds after having resolved a penalty
- The rules are deactivated during 10 seconds after the beginning of a network race to avoid penalties due to the boats repositioning.
- Rounding up with Melges and Offshores is less violent
- Corrected the laylines on the radar.
- The rule 18.4 could be applied on some buoys it shouldn't have.
- When a player finished a race, sometimes a player couldn't resolve his penalties anymore.
- The rule 18.2 is now applied correctly on the extremities of the finish line.
- The time to solve a penalty in Fleet Race has been reduced to 50 seconds.